Walking a thousand miles

Friday 13th March 2015

A while back we built two websites for Cornwall NHS - one to help people track calories and one to track the distance that they walked. I learned that I should be eating no more than 1,800 calories a day, and walking at least 10,000 steps per day (about 4.5 miles).

This was news to me so, serial hobbyist that I am, I obsessively measured data about myself. I got the awesome MyFitnessPal app and tracked my weight, food intake and exercise.

Hypothesis

Last summer I decided to see how quickly I could walk 1,000 miles. Before I started on July 7th, I came up with two predictions:

I'd be finished by Xmas - so it would take less than six months

On weekdays where I walk the dog, I walk twice as far as when it's not my turn

So I tracked my steps every day and fed them into the programme that came with my pedometer.

Results

I started well, but I was surprised how much more I walk in the summer compared to the winter. My maximum was 15.2 miles walking the South West Coast Path in early November, and Christmas day was my worst day, walking just 1.6 miles (and probably eating the most calories too).

Conclusions

It turns out I don't walk as much as I thought:

It took six and a half months in total (199 days), I averaged just over 5 miles a day

On dog walking weekdays I walk 1.6 times further (5.6 vs 3.4 miles)

The other statistic that came out of the pedometer programme was that I burned over half a stone (4.1kg) of fat while I walked!